INTRODUCTION ix notable and suggestive that at such a time, though many think of poetry as the voice of the past, a few ✔ should still consider it a voice of the future also, and that there should be found what I may call practical idealists, to discover one need of our most liberal schools, and to do this much to relieve it. I have thought it appropriate that an opening course upon this foundation should relate to the absolute nature of the art which future lecturers will consider more in detail with respect to its technical laws, varied forms, and historic illustrations. These pages, then, treat of the quality and attributes of poetry itself, of its source and efficacy, and of the enduring laws to which its true examples ever are conformed. An attempt to do this within brief limits, notwithstanding the extent of the subject, is not quite impracticable, since whether the "first principles" of any art, even of the philosophy of all arts and knowledge, can be tersely set forth, is not so much in question as is the skill of one who tries to epitomize them. In the consideration of any subject, however ideal, an agreement as to what shall be denoted by its title may well be established at the outset. Therefore I have not evaded even that which it is so customary to deprecate, a definition of the thing examined in this treatise. It must be observed that our discus sion is of poetry in the concrete, and as the actual record of human expression, —keeping ever in mind, no less, the uncapturable and mysterious' spirit from which its energy is derived. I say this, because most essays upon the theme have been produced by one or the other of two classes, - either by transcendentalists who invoke the astral presence but underrate its fair embodiment, or by technical artisans who pay regard to its material guise alone. There is no good reason, I think, why both the essence and the incarnation of poetry may not be considered as directly as those of the less inclusive and more palpable fine arts. At all events, an attempt is made in this volume to do that very thing. Even this enforced brevity makes it the more needful that my course should be in good faith what its title indicates elementary. But the simplest laws and constituents, those most patent to common apprehension, are also the most profound and abiding. Their statement must be accurate, first of all; since, as in the present instance, it seeks to determine the initial aim, and a hairbreadth's deviation at the start means a ruinous divergence as the movement progresses. I make no apology, then, for what is elementary and oft-repeated, my wish being, in this opening discussion of that wherewith the Turnbull lectureship is concerned, to derive a statement of first INTRODUCTION xi principles from the citation of many illustrious witnesses and creative works. If, therefore, I seem to thresh old straw, it is not without design; and often, instead of making the curious references so easily culled from the less-known books upon our shelves, I repeat passages most famous and familiar, — the more familiar, as a rule, because none apter in illustration can be cited. In the endeavor to use time to the best advantage, it seemed most feasible to begin with a suggestion of reasons why poetry does not obtain the scientific consideration awarded to material processes, and then to review important outgivings of the past with respect to it; and next, to essay a direct statement of its nature (analyzing the statement logically), and to add a correlative view of its powers and limitations as compared with, and differentiated from, those of the other fine arts. I found it serviceable, afterwards, to divide all poetry-as indeed the product of every art may be divided into the two main results, creation and self-expression, the vitalities of which are implied in those well-worn metaphysical terms, the objective and the subjective. The former characterization applies to that primitive and heroic song which is the only kind recognized by a Macaulay, with his faculty attuned to the major key. But, after all, there was much self-expression in "the : To antique," just as there are stately examples of objective creation in the poetry of Christendom. Therefore it was not possible to confine a third lecture entirely to the one, nor a fourth entirely to the other. The creative element, however, is the main topic of the third, while the fourth, entitled "Melancholia," pursues chiefly the stream of self-expression. gether, the two afford all the scope permitted in this scheme for a swift glance at the world's masterpieces. The way now becomes clear for examination of the pure attributes which qualify the art we are considering on the side of aesthetics, beauty, — and therewith truth, as concerns the realistic, the instructive, the ethical; then the inventive and illuminating imagination, and passion with its motive power and sacred rage; lastly, the faculty divine, operative through insight, genius, inspiration, and consecrated by the minstrel's faith in law and his sense of a charge laid upon him. A concession from the original scheme appears in the briefness of the section devoted to passion, under which title a poet's emotion should receive the same attention elsewhere given to his taste, sincerity, and imaginative power. My limits compelled me to speak of passion at the opening of the final lecture, where it does not precisely belong, though a necessary excitant of "the faculty divine." INTRODUCTION xiii Modern writers upon poetry as an art occupy themselves, as I have hinted, very closely with technical matters, with "the science of verse," its rhythm, diction, and metrical effects. But these are matters of course for natural poets, each after his own voice and individuality, and technical instruction is obtained by them otherwise than through the schooling which fortifies the practitioners of arts which return subsistence as well as fame. Contenting myself with assuming the need of artistic. perfection, I turn to weightier matters of the law, there being no true science of poetry which does not seek after the abstract elements of its power. Nor can any work henceforth be an addition to the literature of the subject, which fails to recognize the obligation of treating it upon scientific lines. For no one now feels the steadfast energy of science more than do the poets themselves, and they realize that, if at first it caused a disenchantment, it now gives promise of an avatar. The readjustment, in truth, is so thoroughly in force that a critic moves with it instinctively. If there is anything novel in this treatise, anything like construction, it is the result. of an impulse to confront the scientific nature and methods of the thing discussed. Reflecting upon its historic and continuous potency in many phases of life, upon its office as a vehicle of spiritual expres |